Sidney Crosby signed a contract extension worth $104.4 million in June. So, despite the fact the NHL is determined to make sure he doesn't see all of that, he's in OK shape. If an NHL lockout threatens the start of the 2012-13 season, as is a virtual certainty, Crosby will head to Russia and make some of that money back. He has more endorsement cash to his name than most of his peers can imagine.

But when it comes to playing hockey—the stuff that actually happens on the ice—Crosby has more to lose than anybody.

After concussion-related issues robbed the former MVP, scoring champ and Stanley Cup-winning Pittsburgh Penguins captain of all but 69 games in the past two seasons, at his ostensible peak, Crosby is finally 100 percent. At 25, he's working as hard as he ever has, his head is clear and, based on reports out of Pittsburgh, he seems to have knocked whatever rust stuck around for his pre-postseason return.

So, Crosby wants to play. But he's ready to sit. Again. And regardless of how you feel about the ongoing inability of wealthy men, wealthier men and corporations to divide up a $3.3 billion-and-growing-pie, Crosby's willingness to wait out the owners is the best possible indication that the fight is about a lot more than percentage points.

On Thursday, Crosby stood at the podium in a Manhattan hotel ballroom—the only player of the 280 or so in attendance called to address the media and public en masse—and said that he hoped the season would start on time.

Hoped.

"I want to believe. You have to," Crosby said. "As a player, when you're training and you're practicing, the worst thing is having that doubt, because you've trained so hard over the summer, and I know in my case not playing for as long as I did, but you also have to realize that there's principles here. And you have to understand what's right."

In that regard, Crosby was rank-and-file. The union, to a man, says that players are more informed than they've ever been thanks to Donald Fehr, and that there's more at stake than their own paychecks. They're talking about setting a precedent, fixing a system they say is broken—and not just for them.

"You see a turnout like we had, you see guys that are interested. That's not just because they care about their finances and what they're going to get paid. They want to play. They want to know what they're standing for, and I think they believe in it," Crosby said.

Maybe players are 100 percent committed; maybe they're not. But they've staked their position on overhauling a system—light on revenue sharing, heavy on escrow and absolute in the percentage it guarantees players—that they believe is flawed enough to guarantee more labor crises down the road, rather than two in eight years.

The players' plan guarantees them a certain amount of money and a percentage of projected growth—using a rate the owners, of course, dispute—they believe breaks what has become a cycle of failed negotiations and salary rollback attempts. They're also looking to transfer money from clubs that are money-making machines to ones like the Phoenix Coyotes, who are ... not.

"I don't think any one team is more important than another team," New York Islanders forward Kyle Okposo told Sporting News' Jesse Spector. "It's about the league as a whole trying to make steps."

Those attempted steps, according to the players, are part of what gives them the moral high ground.

"We're thinking much more about the future than the top executives of the NHL are," Buffalo Sabres goalie Ryan Miller said. "We don't want the fans to go through this—in their proposal, it'll be (every) five or six years. I don't think it's fair. I don't think it's right. I don't think it grows the game the way we want to see it grow."

The league, as stated time and again by commissioner Gary Bettman, is looking to cut salaries above all else. Bettman said it again Thursday, when he briefed reporters after a Board of Governors meeting, also in Manhattan: "We believe as a league we're paying out too much money."

That's the basis for their fix. And they are as locked into their own ideological box as the union.

"Gary's doing exactly what they all want," Miller said. "This is a squeeze. And it's got to be more about hockey."

It is—it's about hundreds of millions of dollars going in several different directions each year. It's about principles that neither side sounds close to budging from. And you don't have to be an absolutist for an Oct. 11 start to see that's a problem.

Crosby was realistic about the current state of negotiations but held onto the Fehr talking point about the quick-turn nature of labor negotiations. Toward the end of his 10 minutes in front of the camera, he said something that, at this point, seems sadly Pollyanna, and by the tone of his voice, he knew it: "If things get pushed back, we can still have a full season."

It'd be his first since 2009-10. It's on the verge getting derailed before it leaves the station. And that's a shame for people who enjoy watching him play hockey, for others whose livelihood depend on his games—and for him.